‘I said, “She’s at the house. With my brother.”
‘“And your parents? Where have they gone?”
‘I said. “They’re dead.”
‘He sighed then. He said, “I had no idea. I’m very sorry.” And then he said, “Look. I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t want to get involved in any of this. But you have brought this boy to my door and I have a duty of care towards him. So, let’s keep him here for a while. I have the room for him.”
‘And then I said I wanted to leave, to go back for you, but he said, “You look anaemic. I want to run some tests on you before I let you back out there. Give you something to eat.”
‘So he fed me, a bowl of cereal and a banana. He took some blood, checked my blood pressure, my teeth, my ears, like a horse at market.
‘He told me I was dehydrated and that I needed to spend some time under observation and on fluids’
Then Lucy looks up at Libby and says. ‘I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. But by the time he said I was OK to leave the house, it was all over. The police had been, social services had been, you were gone.’
Her eyes fill with tears.
‘I was too late.’
64
CHELSEA, 1994
I was the one who looked after you, Serenity. I stayed behind and gave you mashed-up bananas and soya milk and porridge and rice. I changed your nappies. I sang you to sleep. We spent many hours together, you and I. It was clear that Lucy and Phin weren’t coming back and the bodies in the kitchen would start to decompose if I stayed much longer. I suspected that someone might have gone to the authorities by now. I knew it was time for me to go. I added a few lines to the suicide note. ‘Our baby is called Serenity Lamb. She is ten months old. Please make sure she goes to nice people.’ I placed the pen I’d written the note with into my mother’s hand, removed it and then left it on the table next to the note. I fed you and put you in a fresh Babygro.
And then, as I was about to leave, I felt in the pocket of my jacket for Justin’s rabbit’s foot. I’d put it in there for luck, not that I believe in such things, and it had clearly brought me no luck at all since I’d taken it from Justin’s room. But I wanted the best for you, Serenity. You were the only truly pure thing in that house, the only good thing to come out of any of it. So I took the rabbit’s foot and I tucked it in with you.
Then I kissed you and said, ‘Goodbye, lovely baby.’
I left through the back of the house, in one of my father’s old Savile Row suits and a pair of his Jermyn Street shoes. I’d tied the bootlace tie around the collar of one of my father’s old shirts and combed my hair into a side fringe. My bag was filled with cash and jewels. I strode out into the morning sun, feeling it golden upon my tired skin. I found a phone box and I dialled 999. In a fake voice I told the police that I was worried about my neighbours. That I hadn’t seen them for a while. That there was a baby crying.
I walked up to the King’s Road; all the shops were still shut. I kept walking until I got to Victoria Station and there I sat outside a scruffy café in my Savile Row suit and I ordered a cup of coffee. I had never had a cup of coffee before. I really wanted a cup of coffee. The coffee came and I tasted it and it was disgusting. I poured two sachets of sugar into it and made myself drink it. I found an anonymous hotel and paid for three nights. Nobody asked my age. When I signed the register I used the name Phineas Thomson. Thomson with an O. Not Thomsen with an E. I wanted to be almost Phin. Not completely Phin.
I watched the TV in my hotel room. There was a small news article at the end of the bulletin. Three bodies. A suicide pact. A cult. A baby found healthy and cared for. Children believed to be missing. Police search under way. The photos they had were our school photos from our last year at primary school. I was only ten and had a short back and sides. Lucy was eight and had a pageboy cut. We were unrecognisable. There was no mention of Phin or of Clemency.